How could I preview the final result when applying kustomizations to a git repo with helm templates?

Question

I have a git repo with helm charts, and a git repo per environment with kustomizations for those charts. All of this in working great with flux. But I don't know how to "preview" my changes to the kustomization files.

Let's say I edit the dev environment kustomization, can I preview what the final yaml file will look like ?

Answer 1

You can have a look at 2 different commands:

• flux diff - "The diff command does a build, then it performs a server-side dry-run and prints the diff."

• kustomize build - "It recursively builds (aka hydrates) the kustomization.yaml you point it to, resulting in a set of Kubernetes resources ready to be deployed."

As Flux Kustomization only points to a standard kustomize file, you can use the kustomize build to see the manifests.

PS: For helm, check out helm template